If this be so, I know not
what may not pass for truth in morality, what may not be introduced
and proved in natural philosophy.
Let that principle of some of the old philosophers, That all is
Matter, and that there is nothing else, be received for certain and
indubitable, and it will be easy to be seen by the writings of some
that have revived it again in our days, what consequences it will lead
us into. Let any one, with Polemo, take the world; or with the Stoics,
the aether, or the sun; or with Anaximenes, the air, to be God; and
what a divinity, religion, and worship must we needs have! Nothing can
be so dangerous as principles thus taken up without questioning or
examination; especially if they be such as concern morality, which
influence men's lives, and give a bias to all their actions. Who might
not justly expect another kind of life in Aristippus, who placed
happiness in bodily pleasure; and in Antisthenes, who made virtue
sufficient to felicity? And he who, with Plato, shall place
beatitude in the knowledge of God, will have his thoughts raised to
other contemplations than those who look not beyond this spot of
earth, and those perishing things which are to be had in it. He
that, with Archelaus, shall lay it down as a principle, that right and
wrong, honest and dishonest, are defined only by laws, and not by
nature, will have other measures of moral rectitude and pravity,
than those who take it for granted that we are under obligations
antecedent to all human constitutions.
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